Every Breaking Wave

A blog a little out of sync with my usual spoutings. Its a blog you may never get to read. Over the past 12 months I have written it about 100 times and deleted it each time. Sometimes it has acted as an outlet and other times it has acted as a frustration. It's entirely nothing to do with you and so in many ways, like social media, I question why i should write it at all? On the other hand we're encouraged to 'talk'. It's a serious subject that the media has made fashionable to talk about. Joe Marler being the latest to 'go public'. A rock of a man crushed by anxiety. Doesn't make sense does it?

I am kinda torn between getting it down, getting it written, publishing it - the click of the 'publish' button being the last act of total control - and not. After all its personal, the failings are personal, they're only in my control, they're harboured by me, protected. To publish is both an admission and a selfish attention seeking act. It also smacks of jumping on the bandwagon myself if indeed there is such a bandwagon - which there probably isn't. I would also question the validity of how i feel. To be able to rationalise it, break it down, get it down suggests, to me, its a falsity. A bit like when you're staggering around age 17 after two pints of Fools Gold telling everyone you're drunk. If you're aware you're drunk you're not yet drunk. Right? In the same way if you know you're losing it you can't actually be losing it. So I am inclined to take everything here with a pinch of salt. You, if you get to see it, should too.

'Sometimes I feel like I don't know
Sometimes I feel like checkin' out
I want to get it wrong
Can't always be strong
And love it won't be long'

I am often chronically sad and utterly consumed by grief and within the same moment I can be totally happy and full of joy. Don't get me wrong, in many ways I am the luckiest man alive. I am overwhelmed with love from Michelle and my two wonderful kids. I live vicariously through them. All the good, the joy, comes from them. Everything I wish I was I see in them. I see people every day in my job who literally have the world on their shoulders. They're crushed by immobility. Some of them have known nothing but the restrictions they live by and some have had their previous freedoms taken away by illness or accident.They are without choice. Their situation is beyond their control. I'm crushed by choice. By a weight of grief and sadness exacerbated by stress brought on by failure and excuses. My failure and excuses. I'm even failing in my attempts to stop failing and yes I have excuses for that too. I've always had excuses for my failures.

I've unraveled before. A couple of times. The last time was 2006 when I tried to get myself out of debt that only led to more intense debt that magnified the stress that exacerbated the sadness and grief. Thoughts darken, solutions less clear. Anxiety constant and panic instant and prolonged. Exhaustion unavoidable and the nightmares keep sleep a fleeting visitor. Bankruptcy a brief relief but resulting in a subsequent constant battle to stay afloat, to provide the basics, to breathe.

I'm here again, losing the battle. Unraveling. I'm trying to make the right decisions, facing my mistakes but I am being tested. Severely tested. My home is no longer a sanctuary. It's a noose, a weight, a restriction. I have no voice, no place. Fear is palpable, stunning in it's impact, inducing a sudden spike in heart rate, uncontrollable shakes and quivering voice. It's brought on by the simplest of things. One of the kids asking if they can have a couple of quid to top up their Xbox account or for a spot of lunch while out. Nothing major, they rarely ask for anything and certainly nothing unreasonable. The biggest fear is using a debit card. Even on pay day before the direct debits go out it's the scariest of moments placing it on a contact less pay unit with the wait to see 'approved' lasting an instant eternity. The post and the calls and deciding which bill we do or don't pay each month and the rapid escalation of cost in penalties for missing this and missing that.

I've battled debt for as long as I can remember. When I first got pocket money I bought a football in advance of the pocket money over the next 6 weeks. From then on I have been in debt. My paper round money came to me as a fraction of my pay after all the sweets and Coke through the week were taken off. My bar money would be non existent on pay day after the Strongbows were deducted. I then became a prized customer of Barclaycard, MBNA, EGG and whoever else. Almost tripping over themselves to give me credit I would never be able to repay, it would be easy to look at them and pass the blame. I could blame being part of a credit generation, the immediate generation. Of course that's not the case and it doesn't help to pretend otherwise.

I have allowed myself to become affected by the negativity of others. It's surprising just how much of an effect a negative influence can have. Negativity chips away. It doesn't hit in one impact, it doesn't overwhelm in an instant. It's a gradual stripping of defenses. A little bit here and a little bit there. It pushes down with a steady increase in pressure until your own outlook becomes negative. It doesn't even need to be aimed directly at me although some of it is. It's being around it, witnessing it, others laziness, reluctance to help themselves, their selfishness, their lack of respect for themselves and those around them, seeing negativity being inflicted on others.

Staying strong and positive is hard. In many ways I am surrounded by it and I am often relying on the positivity of others, leeching off it, stealing it, however it does become harder to do. Moments of clarity can become few and far between but with each one the relief, the release, the weightlessness is wonderful. Equinox 24 provided a whole weekend of being surrounded by positivity. 48 hours of being in a happy place with kind souls, no judgement just support. The determination, strength, kindness and achievement of others is infectious, healing, necessary.

I am mocked, lovingly, for my tears. Often they're entirely reasonable. Everyone wells up when Doc appears on the pit wall in Cars right? Or when Matt Dawson breaks to set up Johnny Wilkinson's World Cup winning drop goal? When it becomes more than that though. Uncontrollable. It might be a story on the news or the radio, a radio presenters husband talking about her last days battling breast cancer, a policeman describing his efforts to save a colleague, a story of a brief awakening from dementia brought on by a TMS commentary or the presenter thanking the nation for a deluge of well wishes for his wife's recent cancer battle, a moment after an assessment that brings everything home. Often something without explanation, an exceptional song, an exceptional sporting moment, a reminder or a memory. It's not always tears. It can be a freezing, a solid grip that takes hold in a moment that becomes prolonged, locked in.

'You know I need you to be strong
And the day is as dark as the night is long
Feel like trash, you make me feel clean
I'm in the black, can't see or be seen

Baby, baby, baby light my way'

I am lucky to come home each day to Michelle and the kids. It might be a dig in the arm from George or an introduction to the indecipherable language of a teenager from Ellie that snaps me back but more often than not it's a hug from Michelle, a look, a smile, a glint that says everything in absolute silence. She has a knack of timing a text, singing a song, stealing a glance or a touch, to perfection. She carries, she inspires, she loves unconditionally, selfless.

I don't intend to unravel completely, I don't think I will. The joy and happiness and love I absorb will always outweigh the fear, sadness and grief. Whilst the grief is constant it wavers in intensity and is directly linked to pressure and stress. Sometimes I can be grieving without any impact on the moment whilst in the next I can be floored by it. Reduced to a wreck.

'Sleight of hand and twist of fate
On a bed of nails she makes me wait
And I wait without you'

If I can rationalise it I can control it. If I can control it I can see through it and grow from it. The weight isn't physical but it's no less crushing. The battle is constant, the extremes instant and constantly switching. The Facebook Smile is always a con. Too often we hear of a suicide of someone behind the smiling profile picture. The perfect social media life. It's considered the cowards way out by many (probably those who haven't considered it) but in reality it's the ultimate bravery, the final selfless act when someone can't see a way out. Perhaps considered the only rational conclusion to an entirely irrational process. To erase the problem blighting the lives of everyone else. Freeing them to live.

Nothing is perfect in life or in a virtual world. The restrictions are too great. I can't truly speak my mind. I can't be honest for fear of impacting someone else's sensitivities, upsetting the narcissistic sociopaths that cling to a connection, a tenuous tedious link to someone they don't like, to monitor, to Big Brother, so they can be outraged, so they can choose to take offence, to be the victim they long to be, when the meme pops up that they deem to be about them, to be a slight or a virtual attack, because the world (despite science suggesting otherwise) rotates around them. I've stepped away to do whats right, face my failings, take stock of my mistakes that cause the pressure, that lead to the stress, that create the weight. Make things right.

'And drowning is no sin'